Courage

Miss Nike Socks comes into my classroom yesterday during passing time, voice already blaring as she steps over the threshold.  I'm balancing my computer, my lunch, and some papers and am on my way out the door as the Spanish class that takes place in my room is commencing, and she marches across the classroom directly to me, asking me all the way, "If your teacher thought you were being rude and you weren't really being rude but she thought you were rude anyway and said she was going to write you up about it, what would you do?"  And then she waits for my answer.
     I shift my computer and papers, while continuing my precarious shuffle toward the door, and say, "Well, I don't know Miss N, most teachers don't go writing kids up for no reason."  The Spanish teacher is taking attendance and clearly taking notice of Miss N's empty seat.  "Let's talk about this later, okay?"
     As she has a habit of doing, she ignores my request and needs some validation right now.  "I really wasn't trying to be rude.  I just went like this."  She shrugs her shoulders, hands out, and eyebrows up as if she's quite happy to be ignorant of something.
     The Spanish teacher begins announcing the homework, and I'm still trying to get out of her class.  I look at Miss N with my best "All complaints should be directed to the HR department" face to tell her that now is not the time to talk about this, and then I see that her eyes are watery globes and she is praying that I don't see her emotion.  "This is really important, I know.  Let's talk about this when there's more time.  I'm here after school, so let's talk then.  Your class is starting.  Okay?"  She nods, and I make my escape.
     I have all day to formulate my plan.  First of all, I'm a little peeved at her for the online shopping extravaganza that bothered a student enough to ask to be removed from her class after a school year of what he deems as "disrespect" from her.  I'm frustrated that just last Monday, when I was absent from school, she left the classroom early without permission, was found dancing in front of another classroom's door, and when the sub said that her actions would result in a detention, she said, "No it won't" (complete with neck swiveling and hand on hip).  It's killing me that her bad behavior has continued throughout the whole year, and when we approach her mother about it, it's the Spanish inquisition about why we're targeting her child.  This quarter, however, the sixth grade teachers have put a plan in place to hold repeat offenders accountable, and now Miss N's write-ups have accumulated to the point of missing our end of the year pool party and field day.  I don't know if she knows this yet or not, but I'm ready for a serious moment with her where we can talk about her poor choices and the unfortunate consequences.
     At the end of the day, as the noise outside my door begins to dwindle with the exodus out of the school building, she comes in.  She stands next to me at my desk with her backpack on, which shows me that she believes our conversation won't last very long.  I ask her about the incident she had been referring to earlier that day, and I ask clarifying questions, mostly just to make sure that she understands all that went on.  Details are fired out as if they'd been loaded and reloaded all day.  Her teacher had thought her attitude was negative.  Miss N was therefore going to argue that the teacher was mistaken.  She felt she had spoken her mind and maybe slammed the door harder than she had meant to when she was asked to leave her math class.  And of course, somewhere in there was the coquettish shoulder shrug. 
     I ask her to set her back pack down and get comfortable.  "So how do you feel now?"  I need a chaise lounge in my classroom sometimes.
     "She said she might write me up.  And I think I might have failed the test because I didn't finish it.  She said she's going to call my mama."
     "Are you worried about that?"
     "I don't want her to call my mama."  I see it again, the tears in her eyes.  "Mama said that if I don't get good grades and behave, I can't see my Daddy this summer."  Then, they all pour out.  Every tear that probably had stubbornly held its ground as Miss N stomped around our school campus the whole year.
    Now I have to re-evaluate my plan.  I was going to call her out on several behaviors that she repeats routinely that are disruptive, distracting, and dare I say it, rude.  I was going to be clear and probably a little harsh about how her choices don't only affect her, but also the other students who share classes with her.  But now I'm torn.  She can take a whole class down with her on a whim when she chooses, and she needs to know it, but she's also missing her daddy.  I decide to try to stick to what's strictly relevant to this situation.
     "I know you feel that you weren't rude.  You'd probably say most of the time, you're not trying to be rude, right?  But just because you don't think you're rude doesn't mean that it didn't hurt someone else's feelings.  Just last Monday, you offended the substitute."  I pulled out the Discipline Referral form that had been left on my desk by the sub.  "You have to try to understand how someone else feels.  You have to own it when you make a mistake and make it right, not spend time arguing." 
    "I did try to make it right.  I wrote an apology letter.  But she just looked at it real quick and set it down.  She didn't care."
     "I know your math teacher personally.  I can tell you that she is so tender-hearted.  She probably knew that reading a letter like that from you would have made her cry.  Really, Miss N."
     The tears really begin to pour now.  "And I have been trying to make it all right!  But now look, with that other write-up, I'll miss everything at the end of the year.  I got nothing.  I lost it all.  I don't even care!"  As if compelled to add to her list of reasons for why the world sucks, she added, "And y'all never pick me to be Student of the Week.  I don't even care!"
    I look at her and really just want to scoop her up in my arms.  She's the type who might smack me if I tried, but still.  She's falling to pieces, and the only thing I can control is whether or not she's Student of the Week, and with two write-ups, it seems hard to justify.  I take a deep breath.   "You are a strong girl who has confidence to say what she means, and the courage to stand up for yourself.  I've also seen you use your strength and courage to speak out for other kids.  This is a really valuable skill you have!  You just have to pick your timing.  It's always right to stand up for what's really important to you, but it's not always the right time.  We need to work on that.  But trust me, your teachers see the strength that you have.  We won't abandon you."
     She nods and wipes away the wetness on her cheeks with her t-shirt sleeve.  She turns around and walks out without a goodbye.
     The next day, she comes in after school again, only this time is asking for help with a poem she's writing.  We sit down at the table, and I smile immediately when I see the title:  "Courage."  There are no other words on her lined paper yet.  Just the title.  I know that she knows what has the potential for beautiful poetry--something personal, something she knows.  I can't wait to see the words flow, sort of like tears, only with deliberation, control, and calm, calm, calm.
    

    
    
    

   

On Tears and Teaching

From a dreary Friday in January that is way more typical than it might seem...

           

           “Oh no.  No, no, no…please no.”  My brain was ordering my tear ducts to stand their ground, for the corners of my mouth to not be involuntarily twitching downward, for my voice to not sound gravelly and choked.  I turned my back to my students as the bell rang and began gathering up cords that didn’t need gathering.  I took a deep breath and prayed that I could scoot to the back corner of the classroom without having to look anyone in the eye. 

            Of course, I still had to talk to the two students that I had hastily demanded stay after class due to their complaints about the homework I had just dropped on them.  “Write me a paragraph about what Literacy class should look like. “  It was an unexpected bomb after a class period of realizing that my students were not interested in what I had planned for them, and these two had audibly protested.  To preserve any sort of control, I curtly asked them to stay after class for a moment.

            But then the tears came, and I didn’t even want to look at them.  Not because I was disgusted with their protesting.  I didn’t blame them for being upset at a punishment assignment.  I just really didn’t want to show one more clue that I wasn’t equipped to handle their class today.   The two students stood at my desk, eyes wide and faces serious.  Thinking I needed to say something, since I was preventing them from going to their next class, I did some sort of humiliating begging.

            “If you have a problem with the homework…if…if you don’t think that class was bad today…if…oh God why am I crying?  This is stupid!”  Yes, I was also interrupting my own lecture with personal chastising.  I wiped my eyes and tried again.  “I just…was frustrated.  So I’m asking you to write a paragraph about what you think Literacy class should really be like.  Because today, it was terrible.  But if you don’t agree with the assignment, then just write your paragraph (sniff, sniff) about why you disagree with the assignment.” 

            The boy stuttered an explanation about how he wasn’t actually protesting.  The girl continued to stare for a moment, and then probably because she wasn’t sure what to say, she extended her arms to me for a hug. 

            Relief.  I felt relief that I didn’t have to hold it together or punish anyone or enter into any confrontational discussions for the moment.  I felt relief at the kindness that was being extended to me from a student whom I was trying to blubber all of my teacher-y reasonings to.

            In the background, I could see students buzzing in and out of the classroom while transitioning into their next class—a class I didn’t have to teach, thank God—but there were also several standing around in small groups, looking over at me and whispering.  Yeah, I imagine it’s a little shocking to see your teacher cry.  Especially a teacher like me who doesn’t appear to let anything get to her too much.  

            I made my way down the hallway with my head down, pretending not to hear questions here or there directed at me.  I slipped into Mary Lynn’s room where our team tends to gather for lunch, grateful for a minute to not have to put on a brave face.  These ladies have seen me cry before.  Sarah was at the microwave with her back to me, chattering about a new crock-pot recipe she wanted to try.  I chatted a little with her, praising the wonders of a crock-pot as genuinely as I could.  She turned around with her bowl of soup in her hands and immediately stopped. 

            “Oh my God, what’s wrong?  Here I am talking about crock-pot enchiladas and you’re clearly upset.  Sorry!”  She sat down next to me. 

            I grinned and tried again to admit how stupid it was that I was upset.   Within a few minutes the rest of the team had come in to sit down and were all attentive to me.  I so did not want to cry again because I knew I only had 30 minutes before teaching again and I needed to get rid of the hideous blotching that happens on my cheeks and nose when I even think about crying.  But, as it always happens when someone asks if I’m okay, I started sniffling again.

            I told my team about my morning class.  It had started out fairly smoothly for that class, even though I had to start the class with the usual reminder of what the beginning of Literacy class looks like—something that annoys me to start with.  We had fun reading Where the Red Fern Grows together – one of my favorite parts, no less where I get to act out a fight scene and use my most ridiculous Oklahoma accent.  Then we needed to take notes, and that’s when I began to realize that it wasn’t working well.  Class wasn’t.  Or, I wasn’t, I mean.   

            There was a general buzz in the atmosphere of students chatting while I struggled to inspire participation in the lesson about summary paragraphs.  There were frequent audible complaints about the length of the notes, about how fast I was writing, about boredom.  I stopped the class more than once to admit to them how frustrating it was, and how I needed some participation and some quiet.  Some kids thought it was funny.  Some didn’t hear me, or so it would seem since they continued to chat with their neighbors.  

It was that point in the lesson where I looked at the clock, and, seeing there were 5 minutes left and about 15 minutes left of work in the lesson, knew I’d just need to grind down and get through the last five minutes so that the bell could end all of our misery before a fresh start next Tuesday.

Originally, the students were going to have to complete a summary paragraph for homework.  Because we hadn’t been able to get through the lesson, it would have been pointless for them to write a summary for a grade.  But, I wasn’t ready to relinquish control over their homework.  I wrote “HW” in large, red scrawling letters on the board and explained that they would need to complete a reflective paragraph about how class could be better.   That’s when the lump in my throat showed up and I began busying myself with cord-gathering so that maybe they wouldn’t see my frustration pouring down my already blotchy cheeks.  

My team worked to pick up the pieces so that we could all get through the rest of a frigid Friday.  Some encouraging words, some lighthearted jokes, and sharing of similar stories helped relieve some of my embarrassment that I had cried after what hadn’t even been the most poorly behaved class I’ve ever seen.  

When students were again traveling out of their classes to our Friday team meeting, some worried (and possibly ashamed) students came to see if I was alright.  Argh…did I say earlier how that question makes me teary?  I tried to look like I was totally over it, like an insensitive breakup.  “It’s not you, it’s me,” I heard myself say, trying to assure them that there must be something freakishly wrong with me for me to have gotten my feelings hurt by a bunch of actually very sweet eleven year olds who just didn’t feel like learning on a Friday in January.   Then more tears showed up, and the three students threw their arms around me while one of them wiped his own tear away.   Too bad this wasn’t the culmination of a long movie where I had just made a difference in the lives of a school of struggling writers.

My teammates gave me a half-hour break while they had a meeting with all 80 of our students.  Instead of our usual team announcements and Student of the Week celebrations, they had a town hall discussion about what it means to be a family and take care of each other.  From what I can tell, the students understood that it’s important to not only take care of peers, but also other teachers and staff.  My afternoon students were angels.

What’s probably not going to make it into their minds, or back to their dinner tables when they inevitably tell their parents that they made their teacher cry today, is that the tears weren’t really even about the kids’ behavior that day.  Sure, I can admit that when a lesson I’ve planned fails to engage my students, I’m frustrated.  But what I’m hearing in my head when the students are complaining about boredom, or about the lesson, or they’re disregarding basic rules for the classroom is, “You’re not good enough.  If you were, then they’d be listening right now.  They’d be participating.  They’d be trying.”  

Seems like a lot to put on the shoulders of pre-teens in my classroom.  I can’t help it.  I’m working my butt off for them—my entire career is devoted to them—so their response to my instruction really messes with my teaching confidence.  I know so many educators in my district who have the same passion for and connection to the kids.  Many of us share our “back-to-school nightmares” when we get back together in August, dreams about losing control of our classes, or students getting hurt, or accidentally showing up to class without our pants.  It’s woven into our daily operation and self-worth.  Sometimes we spend more time with our students and colleagues than we do our own families during the school week.  So, when my lesson plan doesn’t inspire learning, questioning, and wonder inside my classroom walls, I begin to doubt myself.

The thing is, in today’s America, I can’t afford to be doubting myself as a teacher.   Every other education-related news article is about failing schools, unethical teacher behavior, mass-firings of teachers because of standardized test scores.  Even in our own back yard there’s skepticism about a teacher’s worth.  How much am I differentiating?  Is every learner in my class challenged appropriately?  Why isn’t the achievement gap closing?  All of these questions follow us around in the name of accountability.  The question is, is it fair to hold someone accountable for problems in a field that is inherently complex and variable?  My medium is people, and human beings are complicated.    Even on days where I have the most rich, differentiated, engaging lessons and activities, I’ll still have the kid in the corner whose dad left, or whose mom belittles her, or who was just shunned by her best friends in the cafeteria.   It’s not “If x, then y.”  It’s “If x, then maybe y, or z, or lmnop.”   Somehow, though, we’re asked to produce y and only y, with a paper trail of documentation to prove we’re getting each kid to y.

I suggest that we put our best practice strategies toward our assessment and evaluation of our education system, rather than failing a school, or a teacher, for not reaching some relatively arbitrary achievement numbers.  In sixth grade, when a student is struggling, we study his thought process, his reasoning, his skills and assessments.  We have dialogues with him and include his input on learning plans that will help get him on the right track.  We set goals together.   We try to learn the intricacies of him as a whole person and allow for this diversity as we guide him to success.  We talk to each other and build up trust.   We do not wash our hands of him and threaten him, because we know that it’s a complicated process with an almost infinite number of variables.

Suffice it to say that my colleagues and I are working hard to help every student reach his/her goals.  And to maybe develop a trusting relationship with some fragile teenagers who need someone to believe in them.  That’s where all of my effort goes, because I know how it feels.   However, sometimes my confidence crumbles when I’m not seeing the kids achieve what I want them to achieve.  That’s when I end up as a blubbering idiot at the lunch table with my colleagues (or in last Friday’s case, in the corner trying to feign confidence in front of some startled sixth graders). 

I would say that this oration about my humanity was originally intended for my goofy students, but they aren’t really the ones who need the lesson in empathy.  I received more hugs from them on Friday than I knew what to do with.  I suppose it would be nice if, amid a culture where the blame game is easy and fast answers are needed, I could feel the support from the larger world while I struggle to deliver the answers we’re all seeking.  In the meantime, I suppose I shouldn’t berate myself as much when a lesson goes poorly.   All it does is freak out my students and make my face blotchy. 

Am I My Brother's Keeper?

This has been bubbling up for me recently.  Lately, with the world seeming to become smaller by the status update, my students have shown increasing awareness of the world’s problems.  Just a few weeks ago, some people with a passion for social justice in Africa found the perfect platform to educate the world about an injustice.  Within a week, students breezed into the classroom with “Kony 2012” scribbled on their arms in Sharpie and put hand-made posters on their lockers proclaiming that Joseph Kony needed to be STOPPED!  I was impressed; they showed a previously unlikely awareness of something that was wrong in the world and wanted to talk about it with their middle school passion to right a wrong.  Wow!  Considering my clientele, it was refreshing to see that they were learning of a world outside of our typical demographic, and what’s more, were learning about it on their own time via Facebook and Youtube.

Last week, a couple of colleagues presented an opportunity to partner with a connection in Guatemala to help build schools there and share books in an impoverished area.  We had a way to help provide them with soda bottles and plastic bags (which villagers in the area were able to use as insulation for the walls), not to mention explore the Guatemalan culture and forge bonds between English- and Spanish-speaking students.  Once again, amazing.  Here is an opportunity to extend our interests and resources beyond ourselves, now that we have ways to efficiently communicate globally.

But I have this ongoing issue this year with students.  It seems fairly easy to excite their notion of social justice and fairness and what basic necessities humans need.  They have energy and voices and they want to fight!  But why...why don’t they want to fight for each other?  Why don’t they want to stand up for the kid at the next lunch table who comes from a different culture than they do already, without having to look for opportunities in other countries to fight for social justice?  That kid sits two seats away from them every day.  But sometimes social justice seems like it has to be grand and made into an emotional Youtube video that everyone has seen before the kids want to put up posters.

What I would give for my students to scribble on their arms, “Sam is a beautiful girl and deserves respect.”  I would love to see signs around the school, littered with signatures in support, that say, “Stop targeting classmates!  I will not allow my classmates to be ostracized!”  I want to see them look at another kid who comes from a perspective that could very well be the polar opposite of their own without thinking that they need to virtually circumnavigate the world to make a difference.  Because I know that they could see the difference they were making if they could find the courage and support to just act right here!  Right now!

It might sound short-sighted, close-minded to say that students need to turn their fighting spirits toward the homeland and away from other situations in the world that are grossly unjust.  I am just worried about their worldview becoming "I have this and they don't have this, so we should fix them."  This is a dangerous worldview that only promotes a feeling of privilege and entitlement when considering other people and cultures.  It's complex, and my students have fragile, still-forming minds.

I want my students to know that what’s really wrong right now is that Americans are destroying each other slowly (or quickly) and trying to establish who is the more noble social group with more noble ideals.  We tear each other down because we disagree on fundamental issues.  As an educator, isn't it my job to teach kids how to respond to all people with dignity and kindness?  To be able to talk through issues, even if a solution cannot be easily reached?  To have tolerance for ambiguity and to strive for peace (not take comfort in "Well, they're just idiots")?  Who wants to make a Youtube video about THAT?  

Sharing the Load

As a teacher, I often see myself as one of those bicycle taxi people.  I pedal along through my days in the classroom and one after another, students pile in to my little mental rickshaw.  It gets heavy, but I can't help it.  They keep climbing in.

The other teachers I work with acknowledge the bicycle taxi metaphor and are steadily pedaling along with me.  Their cargo is just as heavy, and yet we recognize the need to keep pedaling.  One way a few of us has handled it is by starting a bi-weekly faith-sharing group.  At first it started out as a few friends/colleagues getting together to read books with Christian themes and talk about issues outside of the classroom--a little mental and spiritual vacay, if you will.  However, as it tends to work with teachers, our work was hardly left behind when we gathered.  Just last week, we finally threw up our hands and decided to call it what it really is:  a support group for people who are overwhelmed by, but desperately passionate about our students, colleagues, and profession.  We devoted nearly half of our meeting time to prayer for students and colleagues, and have decided to continue that practice.  Which brings me to my overflowing bike taxi this week. 

It's been one of those weeks (or two) where a certain student has been on my mind.  She's a beautiful little sixth grader who happens to be inflicting pain on whatever girls decide to be her friend.  She attacks other girls in cyberspace, tries to seduce boys via text, and all the while hides behind a long curtain of brown hair at school.  I hear her name about every other day regarding her involvement in various middle school squabbles and conflicts.  Luckily, her loving extended family takes care of her, as her parents are unfit.  But I see evidence of her pain daily.  She's forcing herself into my rolling rickshaw.

I brought this student's name to our prayer group last meeting.  Many of them nodded as if they knew her.  Some of them did know her personally, but the others--well, they did know her in a way.  They have about 30 others like her piled up in their taxis from present and past classes.  We bent our heads and let the silence carry our hopes for her, and others like her, into the atmosphere.  Then I murmured a prayer for her--not nearly as eloquently as the Baptist next to me, might I add, but hey, I'm a Catholic and need a little practice with spontaneous God-praising and inquirying.  We prayed for two other students and a colleague and then parted ways, the love and peace in our hearts neutralizing the acidic stress of state testing earlier that day.  Ah, the rejuvination that a communication of love brings.

Just a couple of days ago, my little bicycle taxi passenger came into my class, her brown hair draped over her shoulders.  She smiled and showed me proudly a turquoise silicone wristband from underneath her hoodie sleeves.  It was from a presentation she had attended the night before, given by a young author and founder of an organization called Girl Talk, about encouraging mentorship between high school girls and middle school girls.  I had seen a version of the presentation, myself, on the same day just for educators, counselors, and administrators.  The purpose of the program is to educate people about the trauma of middle school for girls and to encourage action to support our female students before they become the adolescent casualties that we remember becoming by ninth grade.   Needless to say, I was thrilled that my student had attended the presentation.  And that she was proud and excited to tell me she had gone.  And that she was wearing a bracelet that said "T.H.I.N.K before you talk, txt, or type" (an acronym for True, Helpful, Inspiring, Necessary, Kind).  Hadn't we, as her teachers, been trying to tell her the whole year that she just needs to THINK??  But, if I've learned it once, I've learned it a hundred times that the education and raising of a child goes way beyond what I can do in a school year, despite what I choose to believe sometimes about my saving-the-world capabilities.  Nope, I saw her with her bracelet and her excitement and I had to note immediately that the real inspiration there was the work of God.  A small victory for her, and for faith.  The load I carry is a little lighter--that is, until she needs to be carried again.

So, since God has affirmed for me that my time spent with my colleagues in prayer was purposeful and powerful, I'll end with one more prayer for this little girl.  Lord, I pray that the adults in this beautiful flower's life can be inspired to rally around her and show her the love that I know once in her life, someone denied her.  Help her to see the gifts she has and how to show love to others around her.  Lift her up and hold her close until she is able to glorify You with her thoughts, actions, and txts.  Amen.